Proudly the Opposite of What Passes for Progressive

Monthly Archives: November 2015

Our new Prime Minister is intent on adding 25,000 Syrian refugees by year end to fulfill a campaign promise.

By contrast the US, a country 10 times our size, is only adding 10,000 refugees… over the next year.

Justin Trudeau and Liberals trumpeted during the election that they were going to champion “evidence-based policy making” which is a supposed non-partisan approach to creating policy that is independent of ideology. It’s something the left trots out all the time, starting way back with the Tony Blair government in England, but in reality it’s selectively applied and is intended merely to shut off debate, because who can debate facts?

Selectively applied? Well, certainly there’s little “evidence-based” policy making at work with respect to the Syrian refugees.

There are fairly reliable reports that as many as 3-4% of Syrian refugees are sympathetic to ISIS and all that entails, namely a fundamentalist interpretation and enforcement of their religion, an Islamic supremacist mindset.

If for the sake of argument you say that number is closer to 1%, of 25,000 expedited refugees that means 250 would be ISIS sympathizers. Even 0.5% would mean 125. It doesn’t take that many to cause quite a bit of carnage, as Paris has shown. Even then, do we want 125 Islamists walking around Thornhill and Mississauga helping propagate an incubating environment that has already seen many Canadian born youth embracing Islamism?

So where is the evidence-based policy making now? Facts would suggest that a more reasonable, controlled and cautious approach to what and how many Syrian refugees are brought into our country.

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In Russian history the Bolsheviks were a small minority back at the turn of the 20th century. The liberal elites in Russia pretty much dismissed them as extremist, Marxist nutbars with little or no traction in the general public. But of all the groups they were the most serious. And they ended up taking control and the communist USSR was born. Millions and millions were killed in the next half century in the service of that ideology.

We’re not serious in this fight against Islamists.

Watch this clip and if you don’t think a pianist with tears in his eyes playing “Imagine” is trite and corny, then you’re one of the un-serious ones.

One can almost predict the response after the next attack, because this one is already doing a pretty good job of apeing the response to the Charlie Hebdo attack with all the candlelight vigils, #hashtag activism and other hollow and symbolic gestures. None of this is changing the hearts and minds of those hundreds of millions world wide who are incubating this evil virus.

Traditional conservatism, if you read any of the classic writers (Hume, Burke et. al.) is about balance, stability and rational government. Conservatives should therefore be a “big tent” party; the libertarian wing pushes free markets to provide natural balance, social conservatives want more respect for traditional values and institutions to provide social stability, and Tories make the case for a government that acts cautiously, prudently and without the “feel good” policy motives of the left.

Mr. Kline obviously leans to the libertarian side, which is fine, but dismissing social conservatives and Red Tories from the equation is a mistake and will not revive the party’s fortunes long term.

The narrative that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government was a micro-managing, repressive, partisan, anti-democratic force for ill extends back to Day One of his time in power, because, of course, the number one sin of any conservative politician in the eyes of the left is electoral victory itself. An election victory is usually explained away by the left as a “stolen” election (Bush), a duped electorate (Ford) or bought and paid for by Big Oil/Big Pharma/Big Banks/Big whatever (every conservative). Because interpreting conservative victory at the polls as a repudiation of leftist policies cannot ever be considered as a possibility.

Take the case of federal public civil servants. Under the incrementalist Harper, his government actually increased the size of the federal government, giving civil servants pay raises and never experiencing a federal labour strike or work stoppage of any sort. He did almost nothing to redress the continuing imbalance between public and private sector wages/benefits/employment levels, and yet he was openly despised by said civil servants, to the point where they openly called for his defeat.

Of course, you could argue it’s not all about the pay and benefits, but how they were treated under Harper. They were “muzzled” under his “reign of terror” (an expression the author of the article uses 3 times, including terms such as “rule”, “regime” etc., all connoting a dictatorial leadership, not a democratically elected one, but we digress). But is it any wonder?

Sure a conservative government might be able to find enough qualified conservatives to staff the first few levels of any bureaucracy, but it is almost impossible to fill the ranks top to bottom with conservatives – there just aren’t enough of them, and most are working in the private sector (happily) anyway. So when your rank and file are opposed to their very own government, can you afford to have people, most of whom have no respect for the idea of trying to maintain an outward appearance of neutrality, running around questioning and bad-mouthing your policies? No, it’s insubordination in the simplest definition of the word.

Guaranteed if a conservative-minded civil servant is brave enough to speak out against the Trudeau government that person will be censured. But will the “muzzling” narrative be used then? Unlikely.

And the whole “evidence-based policy” idea is something that will be explored in future posts. But make no mistake, it’s propaganda because Liberal governments have a knack for ignoring evidence to the contrary on all sorts of issues, whether it’s proof that raising the minimum wage results in higher unemployment, to proof that raising taxes actually reduces government revenues and on and on. Rather what this “evidence-based policy” making that these un-muzzled scientists are championing is simply code for climate change policy. Nothing more, and yet nothing less since this union of scientists, the 97% that believe in climate change, is itself a mythology… without evidence.

Do you hear it? Angels playing their harps, cherubic children’s choirs singing, hippies strumming their guitars… we’ve done it! The new messiah has been sworn in as Prime Minister!

Leah McLaren takes point on writing today’s installment of fellating-our-new-Prime Minister. There is some wonderful stuff here;

I’m not sad about it. I’m delighted – for my country, for him, for the beautiful, beaming Sophie with her yoga-sculpted curves and wavy hair in a fashionable shade of “bronde” (half brown, half blonde). I’m happy for their three kids – the girl, the boy and the cherubic, bright-eyed baby. I imagine them all in their sunny kitchen on a Saturday morning, making oat-bran pancakes and chatting in a perfect blend of French and English about all the things they are going to do that will astonish people. Things like: laughing and smiling with conviction, having an open dialogue with the media, letting cabinet ministers say what they want and just generally being nice.

And if that wasn’t enough for you;

At some moments I feel about Justin Trudeau the way Truman Capote felt about the socialite Babe Paley: “She had only one flaw: She was perfect – other than that she was perfect.”

Oh Leah, don’t feel like that! Justin is actually quite unaccomplished as well. Don’t feel self-conscious about your failure of a life.

I had a little cry when I saw the election results, not only because I was happy and relieved for the country but because, looking at the beaming face of the man my own age we had chosen to run it, I realized that life had just got very, very real.

Yes, very real!

For my generation, Trudeau seems to be the opposite of a letdown. If anything, he’s a reminder that we need to raise the bar, to do better, or at least give our wildest dreams a shot.

Prediction – these people are doomed for devastating disappointment. They have slipped on the banana peel of delusion and imbued our new Prime Minister with all the leftist dreams of a messianic charismatic Leader of the Left come to deliver them to the promised world.

Well, delusion meet the real world. He can’t (and won’t) do half of what you want him to do. Thankfully.

Like this:

Being a conservative in a predominantly liberal culture, a lot of thought goes into what influences culture and moves the needle in that regard.

To borrow from Stephen Harper’s analogy that he used in a talk with his caucus way back in 2008, culture is like a massive ocean liner; heading in one direction, almost impossible to change course. Yet tiny almost imperceptible adjustments in its course could result in large changes in destination years down the road.

But there are three things that can change a culture, and in a relatively short period of time; technology, catastrophe and demographics.

When you look at this map and the article, it’s obvious that here in Canada we have a problem – a median age of 41.7 years is not a good thing, especially in a country (and province if you live in Ontario) that has heavily borrowed from future generations, which based on the median age looks like they might not be big enough in size to cover our current generation’s debts.

Germany is the oldest country, 46 years is the median age, and they’ve recently decided to address this lack of youth by saying they’re going to bring in a million Syrians at a cost of $23 billion or thereabouts. That’ll change German culture, for sure. But they’ve almost no choice in the matter; like most European countries, they’re heavily in debt with no future generations of Germans to pay the bills. So they decide to invest in bringing in young people from other countries to pay those bills… if in fact they’re going to be interested in doing that. It’s cultural suicide in the name of paying for cradle to grave statist benefits.

We’re pretty sure that for every young woman that shows up, there will be at least 50 dudes standing outside in the cold with their schlongs in their hands, since of course they’re supposedly going to try and make sure that there are even numbers from each gender (and sexuality).

And what will these people look like – guaranteed losers and nerds.

There are rules too? I think asking that people wipe up the bodily fluids should go without saying. And no testing for STDs? A bit of Russian roulette, that. You need to sign waivers and then ask every 30s if what you’re doing is still OK?

“Do I have your consent?”

“Yes”

“Do I still have your consent?”

“Yes”

“What about now?”

“Yes”

“Can I keep doing what I’m doing?”

“Yes”

…and on and on. Until he goes one step too far and mistakes the exit for an entry, after which of course she yells rape and the party comes to a brutal end.